Frugality has met environmentalism at my local Giant supermarket as those 99 cent reusable shopping bags can now net you a five cent discount at the checkout register. It’s estimated that Americans consume a hundred billion plastic shopping bags each year and we recycle about none of them. Those hundred billion end up in the woods, in the water, and in the throats of small furry animals, so do your part and start using reusable shopping bags because it can actually save you some money too.

At 99 cents each and a nickel discount each time you use them, it’s a mere twenty visits before each bag pays for itself. After the twenty visits, you start turning a small profit on the bags and can save yourself some money while saving the environment. And if you don’t want to spend the dollar on a reusable bag and you don’t have any totes, you can always turn a tanktop into a shopping bag (or use some other feat of ingenuity).

These stores offer some sort of discount for using a reusable shopping bag:

Giant Foods,

Whole Foods,

Trader Joes,

Krogers,

Super Fresh

If you know of a store that offers a discount for using a reusable bag, please leave it in the comments below and I’ll add them to the list.